Concern grows for Little Ted and Jemima

While Communications Minister Richard Alston was bothered by bias in the ABC's coverage of the war, viewers were more annoyed by the disruption to Playschool, according to ABC figures.

Between March 17 and May 4, as the battle for Baghdad raged, 1870 people wrote to or telephoned the ABC with feedback on the war - not all were complaints.

Of the political calls, 65 expressed a pro-war sympathy, and 45 were anti-war. But 990 were calling to express their frustration at the conflict's impact on their viewing schedule - particularly to children's television, which was affected during the war when the ABC aired continuous coverage or switched live to defence briefings.

The ABC circulated the figures yesterday, in a bid to counteract Senator Alston's complaints of bias on the radio program, AM.

But the broadcaster's latest three-monthly report on viewer feedback tells a more detailed story about what motivates ABC viewers and listeners, and how regularly the ABC pleads guilty to errors and bias.");document.write("

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During January, February and March, the ABC received 1457 complaints, of which 49 were upheld, according to the report, newly posted on the ABC's website.

The corporation pleaded guilty to mistakenly identifying delayed broadcasts as "live", airing an exploitative interview with the young son of a murdered man, allowing ungrammatical language by a Playschool presenter and using a tasteless headline on the ABC Online website.

But of 13 matters which were appealed all the way to the organisation's newly established Complaints Review Executive only one was upheld.

This complaint concerned the presenter of the radio program Australia All Over, who recounted an anecdote, told to him by a friend, of being approached on a Jakarta street and asked "Excuse me, we are collecting money to kill Christians in Ambon - can you help?"

The CRE ruled that while the presenter was free to tell anecdotes, the conclusions he drew were "a loose and careless generalisation" and breached the Code of Practice.

Of the 49 errors admitted by the ABC, 10 concerned subjects related to the war, the Middle East, Islam or the United States.

The new complaints system - including the publication of quarterly reports - was introduced last year, after suggestions from Senator Alston that the ABC was not sufficiently impartial in its dealing with complaints.